A Cochef of the Montreal mafia accused of murder after the confessions of a former hitman hopes to be released while waiting for his trial because of his fragile state of health.
• Read also: [PHOTOS INÉDITES] Accused of murder, the Cochef of the Montreal mafia Leonardo Rizzuto is suspended by the bar
• Read also: Organized crime: the hired killer Frédérick Silva helped the police in an investigation into the murder of a rival assassin, Arsène Mompoint
Stefano Sollecito has hardly entered the box of the accused in wheelchair on Wednesday at the Montreal courthouse.
A sign that the installations are not suitable, two health workers had to handle the chair for long moments in order to place it between the seats screwed to the floor.
During a hearing scheduled for two days, he hoped to convince judge Alexandre Boucher to release him while waiting for his trial. However, a non-publication order prevents us from publishing the evidence understood.
“The health of Mr. Sollecito is very fragile,” said his lawyer,e Laurence July-St-Jean, during her appearance last month.
Sollecito, 58, is accused of the first degree murder of the Lorenzo Lopresti mafrest. He is also criticized for having plotted to commit those of the Mafieux Giuseppe Renda, Moreno Gallo, Antonio Vanelli, Joseph Di Maulo, Salvatore Montagna and Antonio Pietrantonio (alias Tony Suzuki) and the Caïd Raynald Desjardins between 2011 and 2019.
Only Desjardins, Pietrantonio and Vanelli escaped death.
Revelations of a hitman
These accusations are the fruit of the revelations of Frédérick Silva, a killer in the pay of the Rizzuto clan. While he was behind bars for four murders, he decided to empty his bag to the police.
Its revelations would allow investigators to elucidate sixty plots for murder, according to information from our investigation office.
Sollecito, considered by the authorities as a mafia codirigent for over 10 years, had been targeted during the first wave of arrests of the Alliance project.
In all, 11 men were accused, including Leonardo Rizzuto, lawyer since suspended from the bar and son of the late godfather Vito Rizzuto.
Leonardo Rizzuto at the Montreal courthouse in 2018.
Photo Agence QMI, TOMA ICZKOVITS
Stefano Sollecito had been arrested for gangsterism in 2015 in Operation Magot before being acquitted. Already at that time, he suffered from cancer and he had been released during the procedures in order to undergo treatments against the disease.
